Slender
by CumbercookieLlama
Summary: Just a little bunny I had hopping around in my head. Ciara gets separated from her friends and gets stalked in the woods by our tall, dark stranger. Based on a combination of parts of the Slenderman mythology and the game. All credit for inspiration goes to the game developers, developers of the Slenderman mythology, and the scary bastard himself. Rated M to be safe.


It was late at night in the autumn. A thin fog hung over the withering patches of grass like the atmosphere to the miniature world below. Thinner fog hung in the air, barely there. A chill wind whipped the crushed dead leaves from the ground and set them down to scratch across the gravelly soil. The moon, in its waning, peeped periodically through the ebony clouds circling above. Ciara had come to the forest with a group of friends. Lately there had been well- publicised sightings of the entity that the world had come to know through the net as 'Slender Man.' They each had a flash light, they each went in their own direction, agreeing to meet back at the group of boulders to the east of the forest entrance. The meeting time had well and truly passed by a good half an hour. Ciara sat on one of the smaller rocks, periodically checking the time on her mobile. Knowing what her friends were like, this was no doubt a set up to gauge just how brave Ciara truly was. Having always put up the façade of having no fear of anything, Ciara was sure her friends were somewhere amongst the trees nearby waiting for her to start a freak-out. They weren't going to get their satisfaction for that this night. Instead, Ciara stood and started to wander through the patch of trees directly in front of her.

Moving her flashlight beam around, she scanned the trees for signs of movement. Briefly she heard a faint call on the wind of someone saying her name.

"Yeah, I know you're somewhere near here," she called, rolling her eyes.

She checked the time on her mobile again. 10 minutes had passed. At that moment, the screen of her phone started to dissolve into static. Then, barely, Ciara felt the touch of something spindly and sharp at the nape of her neck. Ducking her head and shoulders and scampering forward, Ciara swung around and waved the beam of her light across the area she had just stood in. There was nothing there. It had probably just been a tree branch, her slightly panicked mind offered up. However, she knew that she had not stood in front of any trees, which were not close- pressed in that area to begin with. Cautiously turning around, Ciara began to walk again. Though her light beam was trained directly in front of her, she swore she could see occasional flashes of white through the trees.

Ciara walked for a while before she came into a clearing in the trees. Again she took out her phone to check the time. Again she heard her name on the wind and the feeling of something brushing the back of her neck. Ducking and scampering again, Ciara walked backwards sweeping her flashlight beam erratically in front of her. Another flash of white through the trees. She was stopped when she backed into something. Looking up, she saw large and long appendages extended above her head. Running backwards again, her flashlight showed her that it was nothing but a tree. The screech that threatened to erupt from her throat was swallowed back down hastily. Noticing something stuck to the trunk of the tree, she moved carefully forward. It was a torn piece of notebook paper. 'Always watching; no eyes,' it read. Just like in the game. Letting out a nervous laugh, she took the paper. It was her friends after all. This was stupid. At least that's what she thought, until a faint boom echoed through the clearing. Again, Ciara swung her flashlight around. It revealed nothing. The booming, like the beating of a heart, continued. It might have even been the sound of her own heart in her ears. It was getting louder. There was another flash of white to Ciara's left, just as her torch decided to promptly die.

Using the light from her phone to guide her, Ciara quickly made her way through the forest, not caring where she was going. She just wished to get away from the insistent boom, now growing in volume and speed. She made it to another clearing, where a wrecked and ransacked truck stood. Ciara jumped when her phone buzzes, indicating a text.

'Where are you?' it read.

'In a clearing with a scrapheap truck in the centre. Where are you?'

'At the meeting place with the rocks.'

'So you haven't been following me all night trying to scare the crap out of me? -_-'

'No. We've been here for an hour. What are you talking about?'

Her friends sent her a picture message following this, showing them huddled on the rocks.

'Well, there were all those flashes of white that I saw through the trees. And the note suck to the Slendy looking tree. "Always watching; no eyes." Very original. -_-"

'Ahhh, really that wasn't us. Take a pic of where you are so we know exactly what to look for. We'll come get you.'

'Fine,' Ciara replied.

She brought up the camera on her phone and positioned herself in front of the truck. She clicked the button, taking a picture. Thank God for the awesome lighting on her phone. Turning the phone over to send the picture, her eyes were drawn to the back of the truck behind her. There he stood. Tall and slim in his suit, his face an oval of featureless white. His head was cocked slightly to the side, as if curious of this new plaything that had wandered into his forest. Her eyes widened with fear, while her phone screen flickered and dissolved into static, the picture being replaced with the fuzzy outline of a pale, featureless face.

The shock of the picture meant that Ciara barely registered the tentacle- like appendages wrapping around her, rendering her completely immobile, one slinking across her mouth to prevent her from raising an alarm, until it was too late and she was pulled flush against the cold body behind her. In her periphery, Ciara saw the talon- like nail of his hand move to her neck. Piercing the skin, he dragged it through her throat; deep enough for blood to flow and nicking arteries, but not deep enough that she would die too soon. Vaguely, she registered the entity placing his face in the crook of her neck, as if trying to breathe in the salty, copper tang of the blood soaking her skin, though he had no ability to do so. As the edges of her vision were growing dark and as her body went numb from shock and blood loss, she felt a pressure just above her stomach. Something cold and sharp pierced her torso and sliced down to her navel. Thankfully, Ciara was gone by the time the Slender Man had finished his incisions, reminiscent of autopsy cuts, and therefore didn't feel her organs spilling from her and drag on the ground as she was pulled over to a tree.

A little under an hour later, Ciara's friends received a text as they were walking to find her. It was a picture message. It showed Ciara strung like a ragdoll in a tree, her torso a gaping, bloody mess. Her organs were strewn up in the branches of the tree, while her intestines were wrapped around the trunk, as if it were a gory Christmas tree. Written in blood on the side of the truck was the message 'Always watching; No eyes. I can see you.' Screams and the harsh scent of vomit rent the air. Covered by the trees a short distance away, his white face watched as he squeezed Ciara's still bloody heart. He would have smiled at the thought of the games he could play with these new toys, had he the mouth to do so.


End file.
